According to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs (DIMA), that a record number of tourist and student visas had been granted to People's Republic of China (PRC) citizens for the 2000-01 financial year.  

Both the visitor and student programs from China were ranked 12th and 11th respectively in the year of 1996-97. Since then, increased resources, hard work and an innovative approach has led to the current success in China. 

Now, China is far and away the largest source of non-ETA visitors and the largest source of overseas students. While China remains a challenging environment for DIMA, these record figures have been achieved while maintaining and improving the integrity of Australia's visa programs. 

In 2000-01, Australian immigration offices in China granted 106,512 visitor visas (not including Hong Kong), an increase of more than 35 percent over the previous record level attained last year.  

The figure was made up of 67,232 visas issued for tourism or visiting friends or relatives and 39,280 visas for business trips. 

While this strong growth has been occurring, the non-return rate for visitors from China has fallen from 10.86 percent in 1998-99 to 4.11 percent for 2000-01, and the refusal rate for visitor application s has fallen from 25.23 percent in 1998-99 to 12.35 percent in 2000-01. 

More than 25,000 of the tourist visas were granted to members of group tours, travelling under the Approved Destination Status (ADS) scheme.  

Australia and New Zealand are the only Western countries to be designated by the Chinese Government as an approved destination for tourists from China. 

"It is a measure of the success of the ADS scheme that it is enabling dramatic growth in tourism from China while maintaining an emphasis on immigration integrity," Mr Ruddock said.  

"Since the first ADS group arrived in August 1999, more than 32,000 Chinese ADS visitors have arrived in Australia.  

"Only 87 of these have failed to return to China with their groups, which represents an overall non-return rate for ADS of 0.27 percent, compared to the global average of two percent. 

"ADS was developed as a result of cooperation between government and industry in both Australia and China," Mr Ruddock said. 

The number of off-shore visa grants to students from the People's Republic of China reached a record 8,886 in 2000-2001.  

This represents a 46 percent increase over total visa grant numbers to citizens of the PRC in 1999-2000, which itself increased 70 percent from the previous year. 

In 1996-97, 1,934 visas were granted to students from the PRC. The figures for the 2000-2001 program year represent an increase of 360 percent. 

"Due to the high level of fraud amongst student applications from China however, processing times remain lengthy, but the Government will continue to look for innovative ways to address this without compromising integrity," Mr Ruddock said. 

"People from the PRC are making a significant contribution to Australia, because in addition to the student and visitor numbers, people born in China made up 11.5 percent of the migration program in 2000-01 and about 11 percent of the skilled migration stream."